And there we are, the KDE team has released KDE Software Compilation 4.4, formerly known as, well, KDE. Major new features include social networking and online collaboration integration, the new netbook interface, the KAuth authentication framework, and a lot more.

Compare apples with apples, so to speak. Compare each OS under the same means of obtaining it.

Comparing them like that makes no sense as you can't obtain them the same way in reality. If they were available equally then the situation would be different, I agree. Alas, it's not. Besides, even then the shops would have to choose between possibly/probably unstable closed-source drivers or open-source drivers which almost always lack features.

Compare apples with apples, so to speak. Compare each OS under the same means of obtaining it. Comparing them like that makes no sense as you can't obtain them the same way in reality. If they were available equally then the situation would be different, I agree. Alas, it's not. Besides, even then the shops would have to choose between possibly/probably unstable closed-source drivers or open-source drivers which almost always lack features.

There are a few places online where one can escape the tyranny of not being able to choose from all possible options.

ZaReason, System76 and even Dell, in the US, and in my country, somewhere like this:

will pre-test Linux on the hardware for you, and tell you the result. Where they rate the Linux compatibility as "excellent", AFAIK they mean that all drivers are fully functional and supported as open source.

The fact that VG computing is a supplier in my country does not mean that they are of no interest to everyone else, because their list of notebook/laptop machines versus their as-tested Linux compatibility is valid world-wide:

Download it if you like, perhaps if you are considering buying a notebook/laptop from which to strip away the OEM Windows. There are 73 recent laptop/notebook machines listed which are rated as having "excellent" Linux compatibility.